School assemblies today? Forget it! The weatherman promised an inch of snow last night for South East Michigan schools, but he was wrong. Michigan schools in the lower peninsula awoke this morning to as much as a foot of snow. A foot of snow! It was over the bumper of my car! Now, being that today is Presidents Day, many schools are closed anyway, but some were scheduled to be open. Not anymore! Ohio schools, Michigan schools, Indiana schools ... schools from Texas to Pennsylvania are all closed today!

Tunisia went thru a soft revolution recently and Egypt is still going through an historic upheaval in their government. Meantime Algeria is showing signs of fomenting unrest. And leaders in Saudi Arabia may themselves be worried by this tide of popular uprisings against unpopular leaders.

Following in our recent line of “shout outs” to great school assembly performers, a little recognition for a long time favorite of ours, Ms. Kathleen Day, our auburn haired heroin from Springfield, Ohio!

We wrote about Dave Mitchell yesterday and the wonderful reviews he gets for his New Jersey school assembly performances. Well, today we have another shout out to a fellow from Long Island, New York who also performs for us regularly in New Jersey schools and to equal acclaim.

Earth Balloon school assemblies have been on my mind a great deal lately as I have been watching the events unfolding in Egypt. What an amazing turn of events to witness! Thirty years of rule in one of the Earth’s most ancient countries may be coming to a sudden end. The world waits watchfully to see how this story unfurls. 

Well, here in Michigan we are digging out from the latest blizzard. Michigan schools woke up to between 6 and 15 inches of snow following this mammoth storm. But that was minor in comparison.  We understand that other parts of the midwest were hit harder than us with areas in Illinois receiving as much as 25 inches of snow! Meantime parts of Indiana and Kentucky were only dusted with snow and had more trouble from ice and freezing rain. Now the East Coast is getting pounded again! Well, it is winter and what do we expect?

Here is something current. In Queensland, Australia, recent flooding caused massive evacuations and covered an enormous area with deep water. The water damage will run into the millions of dollars, and was responsible for some loss of life. Overall, it has been a huge and unprecedented tragedy. An early article from the NASA Earth Observatory (http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=48420) shows some amazing photos of the affected area. All this reminded me of the mind-boggling technology available providing these simply awesome satellite images and how they contribute to our being able to understand the magnitude of our planet in ways previously unimaginable while at the same time bringing everything closer. Google Earth alone stands as one of the most incredible tools I have ever seen for teaching about our planet. Even your aging writer continues to marvel away hours with that toy!

Wow, the English are beating us into space. Seriously! No, I don’t mean officially, with rockets and astronauts and stuff. I mean ordinary people!

Based in Michigan, as we are, many of our school assembly performers are Michigan artists and teachers. It also happens frequently that performing school assemblies will get into your blood. A great school show performer, having worked for us for awhile, will retire to some other profession only to find they miss our odd little world.

With March coming up you should know about a great midwest school show, perfect for celebrating Women’s History Month. As you are aware, we often write about Abraham Lincoln school assemblies, and Martin Luther King school shows, or about Frederick Douglas assembly programs or school shows about Ben Franklin. It seems like it is always the famous men who get all the attention. Several years ago we decided this just wasn’t fair! So we created a great school assembly about a bunch of famous women from history. I guess you might call this one “Herstory” !